


Temptation and Triumph

by McLavellan



Category: AUSTEN Jane - Works, Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Forbidden Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McLavellan/pseuds/McLavellan
Summary: The dim lighting brought with it ever more joy amongst the party, the laughter and music both becoming louder and faster. A servant passed and Cullen took the opportunity to partake in a little more punch, hoping it might ignite some gay feelings in himself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cullenlovesmen (handersmyheart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/handersmyheart/gifts).



> T is to blame, as always.
> 
> But a little regency AU never hurt anybody, I'm sure.

The ball was to be the greatest of the season and, indeed, Captain Cullen Rutherford’s invite had caused him to be the envy of the entire barracks, bar himself. Whether it was high society he disliked, or the false gaiety of parties, he was uncertain. Whichever it was, it had settled an ill feeling in him from the moment he had received the dreaded slip of parchment, and presently he was stood against the far wall, turning away every hint and hope of a dance. He watched the servants as they bustled to and fro to light the candles, mourning the time already spent at the ball and fearing how much more of the night lay ahead.

  The dim lighting brought with it ever more joy amongst the party, the laughter and music both becoming louder and faster. A servant passed and Cullen took the opportunity to partake in a little more punch, hoping it might ignite some gay feelings in himself. 

  The ball was held by one Lady Josephine Montilyet who, despite her name, was a firm supporter of England and her people and held many charitable events for the poor and the soldiers alike. She had requested Captain Rutherford’s presence personally and insistently, and he was loathe to refuse such a kind and sweet woman, no matter how much he disliked parties of this kind. 

  A hand brushed upon his buttocks, sending him leaping forward in surprise. The sheer fire and rage in his eyes sent his current admirers fleeing away, suddenly finding themselves invested in other pursuits across the hall. 

  Settling himself back into his position, drink in hand, he let out the most tired of sighs as his gaze wandered across the dance floor, not a thing capturing his attention until he found two piercing blue eyes staring back at him. He felt himself suddenly pinned to the spot and was quite certain he was a slack jawed sight to behold. The Captain felt as though he were at church, the guilt of sins he had not yet committed stoking the fires of hell beneath him. 

  Still enraptured by the other man's intense eyes, a servant held a tray to him with a note and he was forced to break the contact in order to read it. He was not surprised to see Mister Vael’s delicate writing with a single word: “Stables.” A nod to the servant sent him away; he pocketed the note and discarded his drink upon a table as he left the dance floor, apologising curtly to all who tried to stop him as he went, for nothing could stop him from this meeting. How he desired and feared it equally. 

  Cullen Rutherford had been newly made Captain when first he met Mister Vael - a chaste, religious man some five years his senior and their newly appointed vicar. Though the men had fought their innermost feelings, they had fallen firmly in love with one another, though it was some years before the realisation truly hit them and longer still before they were revealed to one another, though doubts lingered even there. 

  The lamps were lit for the evening and the rain seemed to be in the air, unmoving, rather than falling. Captain Rutherford entered the stables, lingered by his horse, and nodded politely to the stable hands milling about the place. 

  That touch of their hands, over a game of cards, had come after many months of long, lovelorn looks, of shy compliments and the happiest of smiles. And after the hand came an easy, laughing confession from Mister Vael: “I do so love you, sir.” The declaration could have meant anything, but Rutherford's heart had quickly decided upon itself to claim the words as a confession of romantic love. He had been so certain he sent the man a poem, only to be called away to war the very next day. Upon his return, Mister Vael had become a Duke, removed from his permission in Kirkmouth, and doubt thus settled in the pit of his stomach. He made no attempt to seek out the man for fear of seeking out his demise should he do so. 

  With fear reignited, he turned on his heel to return to relative safety of the party, walking directly into the man of his thoughts. 

  “Forgive me,” he stuttered, measuring what distance he might have to make to escape. 

  “I confess I thought we would have more privacy. But surely you do not intend to leave without me?”

  “Perhaps we could take a turn about the garden? I hear the maze is quite impressive,” said Cullen, though the words seemed not to come from a place known to him. Indeed, they seemed to emerge directly from the heart before he might think too deeply about them. 

  “Heaven forbid we get lost,” Vael smiled, with a nod. 

  They took the path in unbearable silence until they were in the privacy of the maze, upon which time, Vael could no longer hold back his need to enquire over the health of his good friend. 

  “I am quite well,” the Captain responded, though in truth the war had taken its toll on his nerves to a great degree. “And you are no longer a man of the cloth?”

  “A man of god, still, but indeed my title is now that of Duke.”

  “I was very sorry to hear of your family's…”

  “Demise? Butchering? Forgive me, no. It was a terrible thing and I am troubled by my suitability to the new role. However, it is my duty, just as you have yours.”

  Neither man paid much attention to the route they took, choosing their direction on whim alone. They passed a few more pleasantries until they came upon a dead end on their path. The Captain turned back, only to find a hand laid on his arm, and the darling blue eyes looking at him with such fierce intent. 

  “I enjoyed the poem.”

  “It is quite dark, we-”

  The Duke interrupted, hand holding a firmer grip. “There are lanterns. Please let me speak for I fear you are no longer certain of the passion behind my words that night. I confessed love for you and it was not a love of the chaste kind, but from my heart. The very heart you hold in your hands. Tell me I was not wrong in my interpretation of the poem. That perhaps you might return such… feelings as I have?”

  Rutherford pulled Vael into the most intimate of embraces. It was perfectly indecent and very long awaited. “Forgive me.”

  “Pray, tell me I must forgive you for the suddenness and not the sentiment, because the sentiment is most welcome, I assure you. Dear man, you are shaking. Speak to me. I beg of you.”

  “Forgive me,” the Captain repeated. “I only briefly dreamt that you could share my desires. I would not be surprised to find I am lying in a ditch, and this is nought but my dying dream.”

  Sebastian Vael broke their embrace with great reluctance, substituting it instead by taking the Captain's hands in his own and bringing them swiftly to his lips. 

  “Curse these gloves, for they have the pleasure of feeling your lips.”

  “Ah, now that is a crime I might rectify if you permit?” For the first time, the man's confidence wavered, though it needn't have, for the captain leant forward, obligingly, and their lips met, moistened by the air first, then a moment of unrestrained lust. They broke apart at the distant sound of laughter and took a path deeper into the labyrinth and their sins, one hand still holding another, unable to find themselves parted now that they had united. 

  “This is a terrible thing we do,” the Captain scolded as they turned and turned about the maze hoping to get lost from a world that would not understand them. He stopped, quite suddenly, letting the Duke’s hand slip from his own. 

  “Rutherford?”

  “Forgive me.”

  “Please, no more of this need for forgiveness, there is nothing to forgive, no crime committed. At the very least none against my own desires.”

  “Do you not feel it?” Rutherford asked earnestly. “The breaking of your heart. The more you offer me, the more I am faced to lose, and I cannot bear it. God kept you from me before and now you are a Duke you will have a wife and that, I believe, will be a far greater obstacle for my love.”

  Vael’s smile faltered only momentarily before he took the captain's face in his hands and held it close to his own so he might see the burning truth in his eyes. “You may not think it, but it brings opportunity. Travel, perhaps,” the Duke continued, allowing himself the pleasure of stroking back the soldier's rain dampened hair.

   Rutherford, a man of but three and thirty, stepped back. “I travel enough. And the war will take me away again in but three days. I might never see you again.”

  “Hush. Please. Do not speak in such a way, I cannot bear the thought.” The Duke took Rutherford’s hands once more for, besides their recent embrace, it was the only contact they had ever known. 

  They walked, hand in hand, as old friends so eager to become the lovers, a thing they had believed quite impossible. For in what world could a man freely and romantically love another. 

  “Italy?” Sebastian suggested quite suddenly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “We have no war with Italy, and it is… Quite at ease in certain areas of the law.”

  “So you have turned your back on the church entirely, and now your title?” asked Cullen, too quickly to obscure any rudeness from his tone. 

  “Pray, sir, be kind… We have not yet ventured into our affair and you will see it doomed.”

  “For it is!” the Captain ejaculated. “The moment we leave this place and I let go of you, I shall lose all I have ever wanted. I shall lose you.”

  “Nonsense, my heart is and has only ever been yours.”

  “It is not enough. I would marry you, love and serve you and, after death whether we be sent to heaven or hell, I would serve you still.”

  Vael broke Rutherford’s doubts with another kiss, gentle and most earnest. “I will take what I can, I will marry you in our own private way, I will adjust my entire life so that it might suit you. If you will have me.”

  “For three days.”

  “And three years upon your return. Three decades. Three lifetimes. My darling Captain, I am so deeply in love with you, I have drowned already. There is no hope of saving me so, please, humour me - let me love you.”

  A smile plucked at the captain's lips, their foreheads pressed together, as he relented. “The is no power on earth that could stop you, I'm sure.”

  Vael looked lovingly into the Captain's eyes, a hand gently caressing his cheek. “Will you say it again? That you love me. I care not for your pessimism and I wish to feel my heart soar again at such declarations as you make.”

  “Very well,” the Captain smiled, closing what little distance that remained between them with a kiss. “I love you. I, Cullen Rutherford, love and adore and cherish you, Sebastian Vael.”

  Such was the intensity with which he said it that Vael was unprepared for the next kiss that followed, though he soon gave in to it. 

  At the Manor, Sister Leliana was sat upon a window seat, watching as the rain grew heavier, noting how it still was not enough to drive the Duke and the captain back inside. She had observed them enter the maze quite some time ago and was certain they were not lost. 

 

 


	2. A marriage of hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some months after their declaration of love, the Captain and the Duke are reunited.

“You are returned to me,” Vael uttered, voice trembling as much as his hands as he clutched his lover in a firm embrace. “I never knew I possessed such strength as I did in holding back from attaching myself to you immediately. But now we are alone. Tell me, are you well? Unharmed?” He searched his beloved with both hands and eyes, not all together fooled by the easy smile that laid upon the recently scarred lips. 

“I am quite well. I am alive and eager to know how my husband fares.”

In the short three days the men had together before war called the Captain away once more, they had conducted their own ceremony of union, to any god that might accept their love as the true and inspired power that it was. Alas, no wedding night had been had and it was something both were curious and eager to rectify. 

Vael had acquired a number of secret texts upon the subject and Rutherford had sought out the advice of a man he knew to be of the same queerness in tatse as himself. 

And so, what began with but a few lustful, hungry kisses, soon saw the men disrobed and in the luxurious bed of Vael’s residence in Kent. Of this nakedness, they were not shy. Both were men and had seen men before in childhood and sport alike. But the touches held no little amount of trepidation, the gazes upon one another's physique full of awe and desire. 

“You are most beautiful,” Rutherford breathed, hardly daring to touch his husband but unable to restrain himself from featherlight caresses. 

“And you are wounded, sir,” frowned the Duke, making an attempt to sit up. He found himself held down by a firm hand and firmer kiss. 

“I am a soldier. It is my natural state to be somewhat injured, lest it seem I am not fulfilling my duty.”

“Indeed, and now you have a duty to your husband. To please him and make an honest man out of him.”

They shared in gay laughter, becoming quite at ease, even at the first touch of rough, calloused hands upon the Duke’s eagerly awaiting sex. The laughter became gasps which, in turn, were lost to kisses. 

Both broke contact to present one another with oils, laughter returning at their matched preparation. The Captain’s bottle was discarded and he plucked that which had been chosen by the Duke, for he loved him and knew he would always follow the man's desires no matter how small. 

With the oil slicked upon his fingers he began preparation of his lover's most secret place, watching carefully for any signs of distress and, happy to see none, continued deeper, partnering his finger with another for he intended much greater things to breach his husband this night. 

Gentle concerns were mixed between hungry kisses and eager caresses as the Duke sighed and moved beneath the Captain until he was quite ready. Rutherford sheathed himself in his lover with a slow, gentle, concentration he did not display in war. For love and war were not so similar in his opinion, nor were they fair. 

With the servants sent away for the evening to enjoy the festivities of returning soldiers at the local village, Vael allowed himself to vocalise quite freely his enjoyment. Indeed, had any staff been home, they would have heard much praise to God and the good captain himself.


End file.
